Bridgestone Motorsport’s engineers are eagerly anticipating this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix after Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro’s Michael Schumacher wowed everyone at the previous round in Imola with his stunning display of speed and race craft that produced a well earned second place podium spot. Having evidently lost none of the hunger that drives a world champion, Bridgestone is looking forward to its outing with Schumacher this weekend as well as his teammate Rubens Barrichello, who will be hoping Lady Luck is back on his side. The Jordan Grand Prix and Minardi F1 teams will also be aiming to push hard in Spain after another few days of tyre testing with Bridgestone last week.

Hiroshi Yasukawa, Director of Motorsport, said: “This week’s Spanish Grand Prix has all the hallmarks of being another classic race. We clearly saw in Imola that following an intensive period of working closely with our teams, we have been able to provide them with increasingly competitive tyres. To see Michael Schumacher running up to two seconds a lap faster than his rivals was hugely satisfying and we intend to keep up the momentum. The race in Spain will undoubtedly produce another big showdown between the leading runners and we expect the Ferrari drivers to be right up there, showing what they can do in front of the expected capacity crowd. I can’t wait!”

Tyres for Spain
The 4.627km Circuit de Catalunya underwent considerable resurfacing work during the winter months and as a consequence, has become relatively smooth on track. The circuit is still notoriously tough on tyres, however, and Bridgestone had to consider both these factors before choosing to bring a range of tyres from its hard to medium range of compounds. An appropriate wet and extreme wet weather specification has also been selected for the circuit.

Hisao Suganuma, Technical Manager, said: “Barcelona is now smoother than in previous years but it is still a hard wearing track from a tyre point of view. The number of high speed corners and undulating nature of the circuit make it hard on the brakes and tyres. It is also possible that at this time of year, temperatures may start to rise a bit. Taking all these factors into account we have again chosen tyres which have shown a high, consistent performance and we are confident that following testing last week, where we tried approximately 15 different Bridgestone Potenza tyre specifications with Ferrari and Minardi in Mugello and Jordan at Silverstone, our tyres should be strong in Spain. I am very much looking forward to the weekend as our teams should be looking good: Ferrari continues to get stronger and stronger, Jordan is working hard on its development programme and Minardi has had more time to get to grips with their new PS05.”

2005 Spanish Grand Prix - Main Page
2005 Spanish Grand Prix - Team and Driver Preview Page

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